The whole Mars mission costs about as much as making four Bollywood movies.
http://www.firstpost.com/india/ten-price-tags-to-put-isro-ma...
Just a matter of point of view.
Even better, read entire wiki article. Can you make same statement again?
So yes, I have no problem making that statement.
Why should it be okay to for white people to tell brown people what they should or shouldn't do with their resources, not to mention that their advancement is supported by the large numbers of brown and yellow skinned people who constitute a large proportion of their PhDs?
Again the material resources for poverty reduction exists and I don't think those resources required for space exploration don't diminish them.
Financial or monetary allocation isn't quite the same as material resource allocation. In most of the world material resources are deployed by financial resources and the allocation of these is wholly arbitrary. Such as in America where trillions have allocated for the payment of odious and criminal bank debts and war in Afghanistan and Iraq, when health and housing provision is woefully inadequate.
Do homeless people in America have good access to clean water, electricity and antibiotics?
How is that different from India?
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Benefits-Stemm...
In my opinion, space probe to Mars is a good idea for space engineers and for the idea of adventure, it should be nurtured. But the moment the Indian Government a$$holes (who have eaten up more than 10000X that amount which a Mangalyan costs) and their media toots start projecting this achievement of engineers as their own "moment of glory" and a proof towards India becoming a global superpower, everything falls flat on the face.
There should be no doubt that poverty IS the biggest challenge for us (I am an Indian) to work on, and there are people with achievements in rural tech to help people over with just that. No space wizardry, just basic engineering. Heroism, inspiration and aspiration should be centred and drawn around those people too, India needs it more.
India's poverty also has very little to do with "lack of money" as does poverty everywhere - i.e. why does the US have poverty, despite it's incredible wealth?
why oh why?
> You can't ask people to just eat, reproduce and die, living just above the poverty line. That is worse than poverty.
Don't you realize the same thing can be said about you :)
I criticized your criticism and you went all "jingoistic nut" on me. Sigh.
The problem is for any good action X that any government does as long as it has any side effect other than getting people out of poverty, it would get criticized as unnecessary. That leaves out only giving money to people directly.
> You can't ask people to just eat, reproduce and die, living just above the poverty line. That is worse than poverty.
What do those line mean? Who asked people to just eat, reproduce and die? How is something worse or better than poverty I do not know.
> it would get criticized as unnecessary. That leaves out only giving money to people directly.
No where in the parent comment or on this complete conversation it has been said that expenditure on Mangalyaan is unnecessary or wasteful. In fact it is the opposite that I said on the parent comment. Where did you read this?
If you can't understand that, I don't know what to say. Ask yourself this: why should poverty be reduced? The same rationale can be applied to why we need "space wizardry."
> No where in the parent comment or on this complete conversation it has been said that expenditure on Mangalyaan is unnecessary or wasteful.
How about this:
> No space wizardry, just basic engineering.
Last when I was working near a village in central India near Uttar Pradesh/Madhya Pradesh border the estimate was a little under 4% (which is huge given the absolute numbers). I kind of believe that over 90% bulk might still be within the rural consideration, but I could be wrong. The electorate interest and its outcome seems to indicate that bulk of rural India is still where it was.
About 15 years ago, rural migration from the state of Orissa and Uttar Pradesh was pegged at less than 1%. So it is not out of context to consider here that the average speed of travel within the country and connectivity by rail and road has improved by factor of 4 in the last 15 years.
This is the rural progress and implementation of ordinary technology, that we easily miss out on, that has brought about rural migration that we're talking about here. It has sparked ambition in the poor which now aspires for a better life in the suburban cachement of Indian cities.
Leads to concluding that it is the gap between the rich and poor that leads to criticism and praise of space programs like Mangalyan. The '100 million India' who have the gift of being in the elite 100 million should take a note of this gap. And not be perturbed by criticism of technical feats like the Mangalyan.
The benefit of ISRO space program (though it has strategic pitfalls too) would surely reach the balance 900 million poor eventually, but that is in future. Immediate priority should be (and thankfully is) rural tech because that keeps the gap between rich and poor in control, and prevents volatility and conflict by keeping the sense of belongingness among the desperate poor.
That's what I think, but I may be removed from reality given that I am off coast now.